PREVIOUS HANDBOOKS

In 2012, we began to investigate the need for a common set of guidelines for Swedish Radio’s work with social media. The aim was to see whether it would be possible to create some basic guidelines for all the various newsrooms/departments at Swedish Radio, with their wide variety of activities. For this purpose, a project team was put together with employees from throughout the corporation. They investigated what we do, what was good and what was not so good. The team found that there was shared relevant knowledge, and, in early 2013, ‘Social Media – A Handbook for Journalists’ was launched. A fundamental principle was to highlight positive examples, and to be as specific as possible. In the spirit of public service broadcasting, it was decided that the handbook should be downloadable for everyone.

In 2012, we still lacked practical experience, so the project team looked for examples from the wider world, always focusing on the core of our social media work: our dialogue with our audience/users.​When we came to produce the second edition in 2015, there was much more material on which to draw. Above all, there was over two years of exchange of knowledge between all Swedish Radio employees within the framework of #SSRM – Sociala Sveriges Radio möts (Swedish Radio’s internal social media forum) – in which everyone who works with social media at SR shares successes, failures, practical solutions and tips. All the new knowledge and all the new examples formed the basis of the updated second version, which was published in autumn 2015.

Both of the first two versions reflected social media as a new medium, a new tool. By 2018, social media have matured. We have seen the advantages and we have thought long and hard about the disadvantages. It is less about new functions now and more about how we can best use the medium to improve our work as journalists.

The social media guide is empowered by Sveriges Radio. Sveriges Radio is a non-commercial, independent public service radio broadcaster. The headquarters are based in Stockholm, and the company has 25 local radio stations across the nation. SR report on Sweden and swedish news in six languages every weekday: arabic, english, kurdish (kurmanji and sorani), persian (farsi and dari), somali and swedish. Sveriges Radio also provides content in finnish, meänkieli, sápmi and romani chib. All departments and editorial rooms are represented in social media, and SR has main accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.